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Australia and the U.K. outpaced the U.S. in mobile spending and click share rates for paid search over the past year, although gains of 8% to 11% were posted in all three regions as measured by Kenshoo. The gauge, which includes only Kenshoo clients, also showed the average cost per click in the U.S. was 57 cents for smartphones and 61 cents for tablets. The corresponding figures in the U.K. were €0.44 and €0.46.

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Search ads appearing on mobile devices accounted for 36% of all paid search spend in the second quarter in the U.K., according to Kenshoo. Meanwhile, the cost per click rose to €0.44 from €0.31 a year earlier. The gains came as overall ad spend on search rose 24% across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Although mobile accounts for a growing share of steadily increasing search advertising, advertisers continue to place a premium on desktop searches, according to a report by Kenshoo. In the first quarter, mobile devices accounted for almost 20% of search clicks in the U.S., but only about 14% of search spending, the study found. Costs per click rates, meanwhile, are decreasing.

Better targeting is lowering the cost per click of paid search ads. The first quarter of 2013 saw the average CPC rate reach a five-quarter low of 39 cents, even as marketers enjoyed better conversion rates on networks such as Google and Yahoo-Bing, according to a report from Kenshoo. Compared with last year's first quarter, click-thru rates increased 62% to 1.68%, while click volume is 21% higher. Both factors may be contributing to lower a CPC rate, according to Kenshoo.

Australian advertisers lead the world in the average percentage of their search marketing budget that is spent on on mobile search marketing, according to a report by Marin Software. Australian marketers, on average, are allocating 9% of their total search budgets to smartphones and 8% to tablets. The report also notes that mobile's share of paid-search clicks was highest in Singapore at 22.5%, followed by Australia at 21% and Japan at 16.2%.

Mobile phones accounted for 1 in 5 paid search clicks during the holiday shopping period last year, an increase from 6% in 2011, according to research by Kenshoo. But the conversion rate was 0.46%, compared with 0.87% a year earlier, perhaps because "marketers optimized their campaigns more for consumer awareness than sales on mobile phones in an effort to drive shoppers who were already out to their physical store locations," said Ariel Rosenstein, Kenshoo's director of marketing research.